Rival proposals target Birmingham Mayor William Bell's spending

Birmingham City Councilwoman Carole Smitherman is offering a proposal that would increase Mayor William Bell's limit on his discretionary spending. (The Birmingham News file)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The Birmingham City Council Tuesday is set to discuss two proposed ordinances that would either place more controls on Mayor William Bell's spending or give him more freedom in spending.

Changes to current rules proposed separately by Councilman Steven Hoyt and Councilwoman Carole Smitherman offer different perspectives on how tightly the council should control the city's checkbook and how the group interacts with the mayor.

While Hoyt seeks to tighten what he called a loophole in Bell's spending cap, Smitherman's new counterproposal would increase the limit on how much the mayor can spend without council approval.

Hoyt's proposal would ban consideration of any resolution that waives the $10,000-per-item limit.

His action follows criticism of Bell's spending on the recent Magic City Classic and what some council members said was a sneaky wording change in a council resolution that allowed him to do it.

"The issue is he changed the language," Hoyt said. "It traveled the road of ill intentions, and I don't think we run sound government based on those pretenses."

The city spent $604,000 on October's Magic City Classic weekend. More than $169,000 of it was for entertainment, including drapery rental and food for a VIP-only, cabana-styled seating area at Legion Field in addition to $10,000 for hotel rooms on Southside.

Officials in Bell's office maintained he was authorized to spend the money. Language in the council's otherwise routine declaration of the event as a "public purpose" was changed to give the mayor broad spending authority, a tweak several council members called a trick.

'Friction'

Smitherman, who is against Hoyt's proposal, offers a counter amendment to raise Bell's spending-without-approval cap to $15,000 and require quarterly reporting of mayoral spending.

She called the existing $10,000 limit too restrictive and said Hoyt's proposal is designed to punish Bell.

"I don't want to react based on that friction," she said, referring to tensions between Hoyt and Bell. "If this will help it by giving the council some responsibility and giving the mayor some responsibility, then let's do it. I just want to take the politics out of it and make it plain and simple."

Smitherman said Bell shouldn't be punished because the council failed to read the resolution it passed giving him increased freedom to spend during the Classic.

Council President Roderick Royal expressed support for Hoyt's amendment. "After an almost $200,000 party, I expect the council to do the right thing," he said.

Councilman Johnathan Austin favored a hybrid of both proposals, closing the loophole while also increasing Bell's spending limit. "We should marry those two together and keep it moving," he said.

Smitherman, who served as interim mayor briefly in 2009, said she learned during that time that much of the mayor's spending below $15,000 is for routine items, and putting them up for council vote is a needless delay.

"Sometimes we take too long on the contracts that are real routine and minor," she said.

Her proposed quarterly reports would answer any questions about where the money went, she said.

Hoyt's proposal first came to the dais last Tuesday, but a vote was delayed a week when Smitherman voted against bringing it up for discussion.

Hoyt denied a personal vendetta against Bell, saying his intention is only to rein in spending and prevent a recurrence of last month's surprise.

"First of all you have to be a good steward of the taxpayers' dollars," he said. "There are no personal issues with me other than accountability. If we can't be accountable for $10,000, how are we going to be accountable for $15,000?"